


H2SO4

by aintweproudriff



Series: Author's Picks [4]
Category: Newsies (1992), Newsies - All Media Types, Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: Chemistry, David tutors Jack and it's about as cute as you might hope, M/M, classic nerd and jock pairing honestly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-21
Updated: 2017-10-23
Packaged: 2019-01-20 20:22:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12440967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aintweproudriff/pseuds/aintweproudriff
Summary: Prompt: "No! You can't mix those chemicals, they'll-"





	1. We've Got Chemistry

**Author's Note:**

> I was so close to not posting this on ao3 because it's kinda short. also, i hate chemistry; thank god my mom teaches it to help me know which reactions are super dangerous.

David had hoped that, this school year, he would have at least a few classes he enjoyed. And, so far, all of his classes had been decent. Maybe not quite as good as last year, when he’d looked forward to most of his classes - biology especially - from the moment he got to school, but they were all okay. His teachers liked him, since he was so quiet, and they all liked doing their job. Even if they didn’t love doing some parts of it, like dealing with the noisy kids, he could tell that they all loved their respective subjects, and they loved being educators. For him, that was the most important thing about school, and it could make or break a teacher. If they didn’t care, neither would he. And if he didn’t care, he could guarantee that none of the other students in the class did, because David made a point of forcing himself to pay attention. He knew he was receiving an education not accessible to many people.

There was one class, however, that he couldn’t quite make up his mind on. He liked the class, and he liked the teacher, but the other kids in the class frustrated him. They didn’t take anything seriously, and in a chemistry class, that could be seriously dangerous. 

Example A: Racetrack Higgins.  
Okay, so Race was a great guy, but only outside of class. This kid could have been a genius; his mechanical skills and natural understanding of science made him easily the most intelligent in the grade. The second he was expected to answer to an authority figure of any kind, however, he stopped trying to show off how academically smart he could actually be, and focused all his energy into being a smart-ass. Or at least that was David’s opinion, after a few years of sharing classrooms with Race and, on multiple occasions, watching him be sent to the front office of their school. 

Example B: Jack Kelly.  
This one was slightly more aggravating, actually. David suspected that he didn’t care as much about Race because Race had long passed ahead of David in his level of science and math classes, but if he were to be honest, it was likely because Jack Kelly sat next to him in chemistry, and therefore he had to put up with him every day. Him and his “don’t-give-a-shit-unless-it-really-affects-me” attitude. David could tell that, like Race, Jack probably could have taken over the world if he set his mind to it. Maybe he didn’t have the same smarts Race did, but he certainly had the charisma. The kid could charm his way out of (almost) any homework assignment, and he could have sold ice to a penguin. Unfortunately for David, his lab partner Jack couldn’t put his mind to actually doing his work. 

-

“So are we gonna do the experiment this class period or am I gonna have-ta come in for lunch?” Jack asked, his head resting in his left hand, while the other one tapped impatiently on the desk.

“Well,” David didn’t look up from the movement of his pencil on the paper, “I think if we hurry and get the pre-lab done, then we can actually get to the experiment- the fun stuff, and then we can do the post-lab part as homework.”

“But howabout we just do it, so we know what happens during the experiment,” Jack proposed, beaming like he thought he was brilliant, “and then we fill out the first part and the last part, and our hypothesis is automatically right?”

Now David did look up. “That’s not what a hypothesis is. At all. If you wanna fill out this chart, so that I can copy it from you and you can copy what I’ve got, this will move a lot faster.”

He couldn’t be bothered to watch when Jack got up from the table, not even pushing his chair in when he left: poor lab safety. 

“Okay, Dave. Watch this, okay?”

Like he was watching a little kid, David tried to get to Jack’s side as quickly as possible. It wasn’t to say that he didn’t trust Jack around the experiment, it was just to say that he-

“No! You can’t mix those chemicals together, they’ll-”

Instead of pouring a milliliter of sulfuric acid into a thin layer of sugar in a beaker like he was supposed to, Jack had picked up the vial of water, and dumped the entire thing into the sulfuric acid.  
David grabbed Jack’s wrist and pulled back, turning his face away from the mixture that he could hear boiling and spitting and fizzing. If any of this got on his skin, he knew, it would burn like hell.  
In that same second, someone across the room screamed. 

-

The entire class stood outside the classroom, waiting for the teachers to tell them it was alright to go back in. No one had been hurt, thankfully, but they didn’t want to risk any accidents caused by someone who was unqualified.  
David crossed his arms and looked at Jack, turning up his nose so that their eyes wouldn’t meet directly. 

“What the fuck was that?”

Jack shrugged. “‘Thought that was what we were supposed to do.”

“You knew that wasn’t what we were supposed to do!” 

Again, he shrugged. Someone clapped him on the back, loudly congratulating him on getting the students out of class. 

“No problem, man!” Jack laughed over his shoulder as his friend walked away. But, in a second, his face turned back to David, serious and apologetic. “Listen. If I tell you that you were right, will that make you happy?”

David tilted his head to the side. 

“‘Cause you were right. But I really didn’t know what we were supposed to do. And maybe I should have read the directions, but I jus’ didn’t want to, ‘cause it seemed boring,” Jack hesitated for a second. “I actually really like chemistry, but I feel like I like the fun parts and not the borin’ parts. And I got excited to see what we were doin’, so I tried to do the lab myself.”

David didn’t respond, only dropped his arms from his chest to his side. 

“If you want me to switch seats so you don’t have-ta put up with me as a lab partner anymore I can, I would get it. I won’t be able to do labs anymore anyways, since I messed up so bad, so-”

“I’ll vouch for you,” David said, before he could think. The sad look on Jack’s face was too much for him to handle. “I’ll ask if you can keep doing labs; she likes me, so she’ll probably let you - with a little bit of bargaining. I might have to babysit you,” he raised his eyebrows, “and you’ll have to promise to never pull any shit like that again. But I think we could swing it, yeah?”

“For real?”

“Yeah, for real,” David said, hoping he didn’t end up changing his mind. “If you like chemistry, I’d be more than happy to help you get through the ‘boring parts,’ and then we can focus on the fun stuff too.”

“Dave-”

“There she is. Let’s go back in, and I’ll talk to her, and we can figure this out.”

Jack nodded, biting his lip so it didn’t look like he was smiling so much in front of his ‘cooler’ friends. But after that class, David saw Jack’s grin, and couldn’t help but return it.


	2. Chemical Reaction

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i started planning this and i loved it and then i started writing this and i hated it but then i finished it and i loved it

A fireplace crackled and popped to Davey’s right, filling the small living room with warmth. His fingers had been too cold and numb to move his pencil only a few minutes ago, but now he scratched out practice problems on a sheet of paper. 

Jack sat down next to him, carrying cups of tea. 

“My mom thought we might need something. I’d bet you she’s upstairs, making us a snack. She’ll probably pretend she made too much and needs us to eat as much as possible,” he laughed. 

David laughed, sitting up in his chair. “Your mom’s really nice, Jack,” he smiled and met the boy’s dark brown eyes. “Should we get started?”

“Yeah, let’s go. You got some practice problems?”

“Directly from the homework sheets from the last semester.”

“Awesome,” Jack leaned forward and folded his hands in his lap. “Let’s go.”

“Okay,” David looked at the first question. “Write this down. Al, plus Oxygen subscript two, creates two-Al, subscript two, Oxygen subscript three. Got it?”

Jack held up his paper, and David nodded at him. 

“Okay, now balance it,” Davey smiled kindly.

Jack groaned, but put his pencil to the paper and knit together his eyebrows. Once again, he held up his paper, and Davey nodded. 

“Nice. Thirty more problems to go.”

“How did you know that was right?” Jack reached for his mug of tea. 

Davey shook his head. “I told you I took these from the old homework. I already had them solved. But, I did choose some I got wrong and resolved them correctly. So I learned something too.”

Jack shot a glare in the direction of his friend over the top of his mug, and David laughed. 

“Alright, ready for another? You can do it,” David tried to hype Jack up, but he’d learned before that Jack could see through his cheesy bullshit. 

“Yeah, shoot.”

“Okay. Methane plus oxygen creates carbon dioxide plus water. Got that? Good! That was exactly right! Now balance it.” 

Jack didn’t even complain this time, too proud of himself to bother yelling at Davey for being encouraging. 

“Is that right?” he asked, passing the paper to David. 

He took a moment to compare the answers on Jack’s sheet to the ones on his. Through the corners of his eyes, David looked at Jack and grinned. 

“I think you’ve got balancing equations down. Should we move on to stoichiometry?”

Jack threw his head backwards and sighed loudly. “Can’t we take a break?”

“Jack, we’ve done two problems.”

“Well, yeah,” Jack rolled his eyes. “But we’ve covered like three weeks of what we did in class, and we just finished one whole section of your three-section outline. So, really, we’re doin’ okay.”

David shook his head. “Fine, but this is why you never have your homework done when it’s due.”

Jack laughed and took another drink from his mug, just as the two of them heard Jack’s mom coming down the stairs. 

“Hi boys,” she called. “Are you two at a good stopping point?”

“That depends on who you ask, mom!” Jack yelled back, sticking his tongue out as he laughed. David tried not to smile, but he couldn’t help it when she spoke again. 

“Well, I brought you boys some food. I made too much of this snack mix, and I figured that I always used to study better when I had a snack, so I thought I’d bring it down here.”

Jack raised his eyebrows and Davey had to cover his mouth to keep from giggling. 

“Thanks, mom,” Jack’s dimple showed itself as he looked at her, and David smiled at his affectionate friend. 

“Of course, let me know if there’s anything else I can get you boys, okay?” she asked. 

“We will, thank you, Mrs. Kelly,” David nodded, speaking to her for the first time since he’d arrived. 

“It’s Miss Larkin or Medda, actually, but I appreciate it,” she leaned back on her heels and she laughed from her stomach at the sight of David’s face going red. “How are you doing in school, David? How do you think you’ll do on finals?”

“I’m pretty nervous for finals, actually,” he admitted, shrugging. “I’ve got a few finals in AP classes. And, uh, the way that the classes work is that the grade I get is the grade that goes on my college transcript. So that way I don’t have to stress about the test later, but I do have to get a good grade on this test. How cool would it be for my first grade in college to be an A?” 

Medda beamed at the boy. 

“Well,” he continued. “I’ve got a high B in the class. So if I do well on this one test, I’ll have an A in college already. There’s no way to start off on a better foot than that.”

“Davey, I’m sure you’re gonna do fine. You’re smart enough to do anythin’,” Jack rolled his eyes, smiling. “If anyone’s got a reason to be stressed, it’s me. I’m barely passin’ my classes as it is. If I don’t get at least a B on all these exams, I’m not gonna pass this semester.”

David opened his mouth to say something, but his phone chimed before he could speak. 

“Shit,” he muttered, before remembering that an adult was in the room. “Oh, sorry ma’am. I didn’t mean to swear. Les needs me home, Jack, I have to get going. But, uh,” he shoved his book and his papers back into his bag, “call me or text me if you have any questions, and don’t give up on studying this. You’ve got most of it, you just need to keep at it.”

He took off, thanking Medda for letting him come over, and waving once more at Jack, who smiled back. 

-

A few days later, the two boys entered the chemistry classroom together, both of them breathing deeply and telling each other they were going to do just fine. They took their seats (next to each other, just like their chemistry teacher had made them agree to do after Jack’s incident a few months back) and pulled out pencils. The teacher passed around the tests, two different copies; one labeled “test a” and one labeled “test b”.

With one last reassuring smile at each other, they put their pencils to paper and began. 

-

The school bell rang, four hours and two finals later. David stepped outside into the snowy courtyard, lit up by a few streetlights, and pulled his hood over his head and slipped his mittens on. He knew he looked like a dork, but at least he was a warm dork. 

Nearby, a group of a few boys had started a snowball fight. They’d be shut down by the security guards soon enough, but for now Davey smiled at them. After all, they were just having their fun, celebrating the end of the semester. The six of them, David included, had worked hard for this break. They’d taken seven finals each, and now the stress was over. He hadn’t noticed he’d stopped to watch their fight, and he hadn’t noticed that he was laughing at their hollering. It was only when Jack ran up to him, leaving his noisy friends behind, that David fell out of his trance. 

“Davey!” he yelled, and grabbed David’s shoulders. “Didn’t Mrs. Rosan say she’d have the final chemistry grades in the gradebook by the end of the school day?”

“Yeah, I think so,” David shook his head slightly and looked up at Jack’s face, which was so close to his he could feel the warm breath on his face. Then again, anything warmer than the air around him would have been noticeable. “Have you checked yet?”

“No, I was goin’ to ask if you had,” Jack didn’t let go. “Here, let’s go inside and check ‘em together.”

“I don’t have time to go inside, actually. I have to catch the bus. Let’s stay outside, it’ll be fine,” David pursed his lips together and stepped back. 

Nodding, Jack pulled out his phone. David did the same. And at the same time, the two of them looked up at each other. 

“What’d you get?” Jack asked, a snowflake on his eyelash the same way that snow had fallen in his hair. 

“A 94%. What did you get?”

Jack’s smile spread across his whole face, and David was suddenly warmer. 

“I got a 95.”

David laughed, directly from his heart, in excitement and pride. 

“Jack! That’s fantastic, that’s incredible! I told you that if you studied hard, you woul-”

Jack’s mouth cut off what Davey’s was trying to say, kissing him forcefully. His hands were on the sides of Davey’s face, and then they were in his hair, and the second that Davey’s brain understood what was happening, he moved his hands to the back of Jack’s head and pulled him impossibly closer.  
Coldness interrupted the warmth of the kiss: frigidness on Davey’s back that shocked both boys out of their delighted and driven state. Jack was laying on top of Davey, both of them awash in the snowdrift. Laughing, Jack rolled off of Davey, and as they stood up, the two of them realized just how many pairs of eyes were watching them. And just how many phone cameras were pointed at them.  
Unable to do anything else, Davey put his head in his hands and laughed. Jack, on the other hand, took a much more offensive approach. 

“Move it along, there’s nothin’ to see here, folks!” he yelled, moving his hands like he was directing traffic, but unable to hide his blush. 

The two of them stood together, ignoring the whoops that sounded from across the courtyard. 

“Thanks for the A,” Jack grinned. 

“God, if studying with you gets me that as a reward,” Davey sighed, “I’ll do it more often.”

Jack raised his eyebrows. “So, you think we should, uh, do that more? Uh, studyin’ and hangin’ out and - well, that thing too but more hangin’ out together and just bein’ together and maybe bein’ together together-”

Laughing, Davey took a step forward. “I think we should. I think we really should.” He rested his hands, one of them still in his mittens, on Jack’s shoulders and pressed a kiss to Jack’s cheek. 

When he stepped away, however, he realized what he’d forgotten. 

“Shit,” he whispered as the buses pulled away. 

“I’ll drive you,” Jack took his hand. 

“For real?”

“Yeah for real. Come on.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you liked it! Let me know with a comment, kudo, or message on tumblr @javidblue

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I hope you liked it, leave me a comment if you did. And come say hi on tumblr @spot-and-all-his-cronies or @javidblue


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